I was interviewed last night for Arirang News’ “On Point” segment on its morning news program, “New Day,” and discussed how a Harris policy would compare with Trump’s policy toward both North and South Korea. I also discussed the visit to Washington, DC, of Unification Minister Kim Youngho. Many thanks to anchor Kim Da Mi for her questions.

Here is an excerpt of my on-air remarks on Trump’s probable policy:

The top issue is to deal with Ukraine. Just the other day, Trump was on the phone with Zelensky. Zelensky was correct to reach out to Trump because they’re going to have to talk with each other [if Trump were to win].

But I think what Trump would focus on first is to make a deal with Putin, which will probably freeze the [frontlines] exactly where they are, and it will not be a good situation, but he doesn’t want to spend any more money defending Ukraine in a [war] that he probably believes can’t be won.

But once he’s done that, here’s my little prediction of what [Trump] would say, and this is sort of a quote, once he dealt with the [Ukraine] issue.

He would say, “Korea is a rich country and you’re selling the latest weapons around the world. You don’t need U.S. troops on your soil and we have to save the U.S. a lot of money. So I will draw down the numbers of our troops and maybe leave a few hundred there after four years.”

“And meanwhile, the situation on the peninsula has become parlous since 2021 in terms of the tensions on the peninsula — and they would not have occurred if I had been President.” And in fact, he said this to Korean audiences over the last three years by video.

So he would probably then say, “I will make a deal with Kim and let him keep a few nukes and just short-range missiles, in exchange for our stopping all military exercises with both Korea and Japan, and the troop drawdown.”

But Trump would probably say that current ROK policy exacerbates tension with Kim Jong-un and has to stop. And I would predict he would say that it’s best that President Yoon makes a determination, and makes the effort, to meet with Chairman Kim and finds a way to get along.

…I would also add that given Kim’s partnership with Putin, Kim may decide not to meet with Trump at all because he figured he’s not good for his word and he’s not good for his money. But Putin is the unknown in this whole situation because he may intervene between Trump and Kim and then we’d have to see exactly where the chips fall.

Below is the full interview:

Photo at top: Vice President Kamala Harris visits the Korean DMZ in September 2022.